Does a Distributed Practice Strategy for Multiple Choice Questions Help Novices Learn Programming?

Abstract

Learning how to program is becoming essential in many disciplines. However, programming cannot be easily learned, especially by non-engineering students. It is challenging to conduct engineering education for non-engineering majored students. Therefore, it is important to teach non-engineering students to learn with efficient learning strategies. To discover an efficient learning strategy, we had 64 students practice programming with a simple learning management system and tracked all of their practice behaviors on multiple choice questions. The learning management system assigned one multiple choice question per day, but let students themselves decide their own practice frequencies. Students could also make unsynchronized communications by commenting on the questions. By analyzing their behavior patterns and other performance indicators, this paper compared the effect of two different practice strategies for multiple choice questions: distributed practice and massed practice. Our analysis found that students who adopted distributed practice significantly outperformed those who adopted massed practice on final exams (p=0.031). We further explored the possible reasons that led to this significant difference. Students who adopted distributed practice strategy tended to make higher percentage of first submission correctness, be more cautious while correcting errors, and be more constructive in posting question-related comments.

Practical Teaching System Reform for the Cultivation of Applied Undergraduates in Local Colleges

“…The teaching links are not systematically arranged or connected and the hierarchical structure is unclear. When formulat-ing plans for practical teaching, most schools do not have a top-level design; the training goals are not enacted centered on serving professional talents; and they haven't invited enterprises in the industrial field to participate in practical teaching, thus the enterprises' requirements for talents haven't been taken into the consideration of schools, which ultimately leads to a disconnect between discipline development and social needs [11][12][13]. In terms of specific teaching links in practical teaching, experimental courses, course design, cognition practice, production practice, graduation practice and other links haven't been integrated and there isn't a sound or scientific system that can push the links to proceed step by step and make them closely connected, which is not good for cultivating students' innovative and practical abilities.…”

Evaluation of a Practice System Supporting Distributed Practice for Novice Programming Students

“…The webbased system helps students manage their practice time and enables students to practice a little each time (Alzaid et al, 2017). Zhang et al (2020) used Quizit to facilitate students in learning programming and found that web-based features impeded students from accessing the system. Procrastination and related problems with managing programming are viewed as primary causes of student attrition (Martin et al, 2015).…”

Incentivized Spacing and Gender in Computer Science Education

“…However, due to the limitations of the study, the effects of spacing (or lack thereof) on individual students' grades were not reported. In a programming class for first-year college students, Zhang et al [50] found that in practice with the same multiple-choice questions, students who distributed (spaced) their practice throughout a semester got higher final exam scores compared to those who massed. They also found that students who spaced more provided more constructive feedback to others and were more likely to answer correctly on their first attempt [50].…”

“…In a programming class for first-year college students, Zhang et al [50] found that in practice with the same multiple-choice questions, students who distributed (spaced) their practice throughout a semester got higher final exam scores compared to those who massed. They also found that students who spaced more provided more constructive feedback to others and were more likely to answer correctly on their first attempt [50]. In contrast, Leppänen et al [28] found that students who spaced their practice of programming tasks achieved lower grades than those who did not.…”